ciao milano

After my horrendous attempt to reflect on Milan and my time spent here, life fed me its own retrospective. After wishing Carly adieu until a possible Tuscan rendezvous and realizing that she was indeed on her way to the next phase of this trip, I headed home to yoga myself and get ready to head out for a dinner of my two families, my real one and my Italian one.

...a woman in her apartment raised her shutters to walk outside and drape her Italian flag over her balcony to let it drape in the wind...

We picked up my parents and thus started the excited chatter of getting to know you and urban navigation (where are we? where are we?) to Il Doge di Amalfi, a nice restaurant in the tradition of Salerno. It was at this point that I started having pretty bad abdominal cramps and general malaise, so I tuned out for a bit but thanks to the bathroom, bread, lemon tea and plain penne pasta, I came back to find the families chattering away, enjoying each other's company. It made me very happy. When people you value very much get along, it's really nice, feeling as if there is some sort of connection in the people you value.
Our waiter was a bit insane, a man from Amalfi who joked around with us and made my father enthusiastically order una tete della monaca (a nun's breast), which is a dessert and not some sort of lewd joke. I had the most satsifyingly sweet lemon sorbet that was liquidy and wonderful. We had a nice time, laughed, reminisced, chatted.

Along the drive home I saw sights that tied together my evenings here in Milan:

... the 'swingersbar' where I went with Matilde and Davide for the first of many late night excursions...


... the bavarian restaurant where I had the heartiest and hottest meal of my Italian life and witnessed the Italian phenonmenon of bavarian beer love...

... the late night monuments flashbulb memories of my late night ride with Matilde and Davide...

... a last glimpse of Tijuana, our local watering hole and hangout with Mati, Marina and Carly...

After one last ride around the block in the airconditioned car we walked back to 14 viale bacchiglione for some sweet calm sleep.
My time in Milan quickly comes to a close and I couldn't be happier with the time I've had here: the adversity of work turned pleasure and learning experience, the warmth, laughs, shopping, cooking, and tanning with the family, the art and aesthetics of the people and the friends and little experiences along the way. On to new adventures...